Sex-ed pilot project in schools provokes some protest in Quebec

Sex-education classes were introduced in Ontario last year. Now, a pilot project being launched in some Quebec schools this semestre has some parents reacting in oppostion. In Ontario the government dealt with the protests by allowing parents the option of not having their children present for the classes. In Quebec, there will be no such option.

“Good teaching comes from good questions”

The subject of sexual education is a heated one for many people.  Professor Lisa  Trimble, a faculty lecturer in McGill’s Education Department, understands. Among the courses she teaches is one called the Critical and Ethical Dimensions in Sexualities Education. “We do get very distressed when we start talking about young people and sex, we have a lot of emotional charge about this as a society and we start wondering about values, and we start wondering about what it is that’s being taught and there’s a lot of fear about that with young people.”  

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British Columbia has had a sex-ed program for about 10 years now.  Much of it was based on the work of pioneering nurse, Meg Hickling. She recognized the need for sexual and physical education in her work as a nurse, witnessing how people’s ignorance of their own body had on occasion cost them their life. She began teaching what she called “Body Science” 40 years ago.

“People were so comforted learning what they were experiencing was normal”

In an interview on CBC Radio’s program, The Current, Meg Hickling told host, Anna Maria Tremonti, about her experiences teaching students and the protests she would hear. Sometimes school principals would question why she was back to teach again in another year, “You would never teach subtraction once every five years.” was her thinking.

With a gentle approach and a great deal of good will and humour, Meg Hickling educated generations in British Columbia,  She witnessed the relief, “people were so comforted learning what they were experiencing was normal” she says. “When you see children learning about their bodies and feeling totally relaxed that they are normal, you know that child is going to grow into a confident adult and the more educated adults we have, the healthier our communities are going to be.”

‘I wish that parents who were fighting sexual health education could put that energy into fighting the pornography industry. It is just mind-boggling what children see these days and it’s really quite scary when they have no one to talk to about it. And no one to explain that so much of this is fantasy, so much of this is criminal, and that they always have choices in their life. It’s really worrying.” Hickling says.

Ontario began consultations on their program in 2007.  There were education experts, health experts, parents and cultural and religious groups involved from the beginning. In total over 4000 people contributed to it.

For Lisa Trimble, the problem in Quebec is one of implementation. “Right now the way that it’s set up is that teachers are expected to volunteer to do this throughout their regular class sessions, like French or English or Math, and most of us had a very fragmented and incomplete sex education ourselves and most of us would not be comfortable teaching this, and so, unless there’s a specific space in the curriculum for it, and resources for teachers and training for teachers and materials for teachers to use, most teachers aren’t going to opt to do this because it’s just too controversial and it’s scary.”

She cites the social media environment this generation is growing up in and the use of an app like Instagram. “We need to be looking at the legal and social and ethical and moral implications of things like this.” Instagram, where the photo shots ‘disappear’ in a matter of seconds, can very easily be screen-grabbed and saved by anyone in that interval, and there are sites devoted exclusively to these images. She says “good teaching comes from good questions”.

When asked about the ten years that have passed in Quebec with no sexual education, Professor Trimble explains that it will be twelve years by the time the program is fully implemented, meaning several cohorts have gone through the system with no formal education in sexual and physical health. She says in the meantime, there has been an increase in several sexually communicated diseases including a new form of gonorrhoea that is now resistant to antibiotics. If syphilis mutates and becomes antibiotic-resistant, we will be faced with a major public health crisis, she warns.